


I'll Save You (For Later)

by navigatorsghost



Category: The Transformers (Cartoon Generation One)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Non-sexual interfacing, Peril, Pre-Slash, Rescue, Serious Injuries, Sort of anyway, destined enemies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-16
Updated: 2018-09-16
Packaged: 2019-07-12 20:08:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16002386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navigatorsghost/pseuds/navigatorsghost
Summary: In which Rodimus Prime gets himself blown up by a Quintesson booby trap, and receives an unexpected assist from a very unlikely source. Just a bit of self-indulgent pre-slashy Galvatron/Rodimus that I'd call hurt/comfort if not for Galvatron being Galvatron about it.





	I'll Save You (For Later)

He was so cold, that was the strange thing.

He'd gone out in void before. He'd been _cold_ before, but never like this. Never all the way to his core, feeling like his internals were going to shatter where they weren't shattered already. His armour was torn and twisted, lines and tanks cracked open, venting frozen plumes of mechfluid and energon as he tumbled through space. He should've known that asteroid was boobytrapped... just the sort of thing the Quintessons did...

Too late now. He could feel the Matrix burning silver-bright in his chest, trying to keep him alive, but even that felt numb and far away. His peripheral systems were already mostly gone, his processors and core starting to shut down. _Well, must be what dying feels like... see everyone in the Allspark, I guess..._

// _Prime!_ //

The voice came out of nowhere - the massive frame that collided with his like an amethyst comet likewise. Powerful arms wrapped around him, pulling him against a broad chestplate that felt like it had a supernova blazing beneath it; _heat_ in the cold of space, sudden and consuming. The sense of drifting resignation evaporated, and Rodimus startled alert as his survival coding suddenly realised he might have a chance not to die after all. It hurt, it couldn't not when every micrometre of him hurt already, but it was a thousand times better than the alternative and he clung to the sensation, power-starved systems desperately soaking up that scalding warmth and it felt _good_ and _oh help-_ "Wh- _Galvatron?!_ "

"Never trust a Quintesson tip-off, Prime!" His rival's voice was bitter with hard-earned experience. "Now keep still! You're practically dead already, don't make it any worse!" Rodimus felt a hand slide under a torn plate on his flank, and flinched.

Then yelped, as Galvatron apparently twisted a broken cable back together bare-handed. "Ow! What are you doing?"

"Saving your life, now stop squirming!" Another rough but dexterous twist of those powerful fingers, and Rodimus made a pathetic noise as several systems he hadn't even realised were down came back online. The sudden draw of power almost bottomed out his near-empty capacitors, his engine stalled, and everything briefly went dark as his optics dimmed-

"Damn it, stay awake, Prime!"

Galvatron's full-on Decepticon Emperor Command Voice had harmonics in it that could have made a dead mech sit up and salute, Rodimus thought hazily as he struggled to obey. "Why-"

"Get your linkage array open!"

"Is this really the time?"

He'd blame injury-induced processor malfunction for that reply, he thought belatedly as Galvatron's optics flashed with exasperation. "In case your diagnostics aren't working, Prime, your main and reserve fuel tanks are both ruptured and whatever's left in your capacitors isn't going to last! The only thing that's going to keep you alive is a direct charge hookup from me!"

 _-oh._ Not that Galvatron was _wrong_ , he could feel himself teetering on the edge of a terminal power drop and the Matrix didn't seem to be holding it at bay, but. Um. "Left side under my chestplate," he managed, trying to fold his armour back, feeling it stick and grind on its transform rails. "Do it..."

The stuck side of his chestplate came unstuck with a flash of pain and a horrible crunching sensation as Galvatron wrenched the panel back, his own heavy glacis plate already folding open in turn. Rodimus gasped, but more pain didn't make much difference right now. He saw Galvatron flinch as the Matrix's blue fire spilled between them, and then it was countered by the blaze of Galvatron's exposed lasercore - red-golden fire laced with sooty black, hot and somehow dark and bright at once, utterly unlike anything that Rodimus had ever seen or heard of in _anyone's_ systems.

He had a brief, panicked moment of _he wants to hook me up to THAT?_ , and then Galvatron yanked a heavy-duty connector lead from his own systems and shoved it unceremoniously into one of Rodimus's primary input sockets, and all thought and doubt were swept away in a storm of fire. Primus, no wonder Galvatron was so hard to handle in a fight. Was the mech even physically capable of staying down if _this_ was what ran in his circuits?

He couldn't really move but he still instinctively tried to arch up in Galvatron's grip, gasping as that smoke-and-fire blaze poured into him. It felt just as wild and dangerous and wrong as it looked but nonetheless his systems could use it, and he was instantly hit with a cascade of boot-up alerts, diagnostic warnings and error messages as everything tried to come back online at once. He desperately overrode all of it that wasn't essential, trying to control the influx of power from his side of the connection. 

Since Galvatron clearly wasn't going to. Rodimus had expected a drip-feed, just enough to keep him functional, but he'd forgotten that Galvatron never did anything by halves. Vibration shuddered through him as Galvatron's engines revved hard to deal with the power drain of supporting a Prime's systems in addition to his own - most mechs couldn't have even begun to sustain that additional load, what the Pit did Unicron's Herald run on?

But Galvatron didn't falter, even though his fuel consumption must have just spiked sky high. "Stop fighting me!" he snapped, feeling Rodimus's unsteady attempt to resist him. "Fill up whatever banks you've still got functioning, you're going to need all the charge you can hold when I have to disconnect!"

Again, Galvatron wasn't wrong, but... _This feels too good_ would be a ridiculous counter-argument, but it really did. The blaze of corrupted charge through Rodimus's circuitry felt good in the same way as tyres sliding sideways on asphalt. The kind of good that wasn't good for you at all but was too delicious to turn down.

And the Matrix felt like it was having some sort of metaphysical panic attack, but there wasn't a lot Rodimus could do about that. It would just have to hang in there, the same as him. "Hhh - why are you doing this?" he managed, as he only-semi-reluctantly switched his relays and let his functioning capacitor banks start charging off Galvatron's power feed. That red-golden fire felt like liquid temptation as it pooled inside him, and he soaked it up in guilty relief. It hurt, but given that everything else did too, this was totally the good kind of pain by comparison.

"Isn't that obvious?!" Galvatron sounded almost hurt that he'd asked. "You're _my_ counterpart, Rodimus! We were created to challenge each other, I'm not letting the Quintessons or anyone else kill you before I can!" His already fierce grip on Rodimus tightened possessively. "You're mine!"

Rodimus just barely managed not to laugh because _oh Primus_. "So you're not really saving me," he said, "you're just saving me for later?" Damn, being near-mortally wounded really did do nothing for his vocal filters.

Galvatron snorted something that might have been a suppressed laugh of his own. "Something like that!"

He still had his fingers in Rodimus's circuitry, and the muzzle of the great cannon on his arm was closer to Rodimus's face than the Prime could possibly feel comfortable with. The pain wasn't getting any better but he was dimly aware that things were holding together, whatever repairs Galvatron was jury-rigging apparently enough to stabilise his shattered systems. He tried not to overthink any of it. "Uh... thank you?"

And then a blast of laser fire seared past them. Rodimus flinched, tried to duck, remembered he couldn't move and had to accept the indignity of Galvatron twisting into the way of the incoming fire to shield him. "Thank me later if your idiot friends don't kill both of us!" the Herald growled.

And Rodimus realised with a sinking spark that yup, that was Sky Lynx firing on them. Apparently the cavalry had got the wrong idea. //Sky Lynx! Hold your fire! I'm right here, you'll hit me!//

//Rodimus Prime?! I _am_ so sorry, please forgive me - where _are_ you?//

//I've got him!// Galvatron patched himself in without an invitation. //And I'll hand him over without any tricks if you'll stop shooting at me! You'd better have brought a medic with you!//

//If you have hurt the Prime-!//

//Hurt him? I'm the one keeping him alive, bird brain! Now get over here if you want him back in one - well, as many pieces as the Quintessons left him in!//

Galvatron was clearly burning through his famously short fuse even faster than usual, and Rodimus winced. //Sky Lynx, please just get over here. Galvatron's not lying. I think we can trust him right now.// He spared Galvatron a sheepishly grateful look, aware that he probably looked a lot more dazed than he wanted to with Galvatron's power still running hot in his systems.

//If you say so, Rodimus...// Sky Lynx sounded overwhelmingly dubious, but he pulled up alongside Galvatron and Rodimus nonetheless, his bay doors opening to reveal Kup, Springer, a frantic-looking Arcee...

...and First Aid, thank Primus. Galvatron narrowed his optics at all of them, still holding Rodimus possessively as he manoeuvred them both level with the open doors. His hand reached for the connector plug in Rodimus's systems. "Ready?"

Rodimus checked his charge levels, and was fairly sure he wasn't going to die in the time it would take First Aid to hook him up to a life support feed. He felt strangely giddy, molten inside, the wicked-sweet burn of Galvatron's power almost enough to damp all the rest of the pain. "Yeah," he managed. "I'll make it... thanks."

"Don't mention it!" Galvatron said, and pulled the connector out of him. Rodimus felt a stab of pain and loss as the current cut off, but his friends' hands were already reaching to grab him and Galvatron let him go and backed away, poised in the starlit space framed by the open bay door. He gave Rodimus a look that the Prime couldn't read, a swift grin, and then turned and dived away into the dark-

" _Don't shoot!_ " Rodimus yelled as best he could raise his voice, seeing Springer's gun come up. "Let him go! He didn't do any of this." Galvatron had been right about him needing all the charge he could get - he could feel his levels dropping with alarming speed, and the dissipation of all that red-golden heat was leaving him cold and hurting and empty and he didn't want to deal with this right now. "This was the Quints. Galvatron was just..." He flailed for a description. "Galvatronning. You know how he is, he doesn't have to make sense to anyone but himself."

"He hooked you up to his own systems to keep you alive?!" First Aid sounded like he was in shock.

"Yeah, that happened. Uh, can you hook me up to something else that'll do that job please because I really don't feel good-"

"I'm working on it, Rodimus, hold on!" and then something much less dramatic-feeling was plugged into his exposed ports, and Rodimus gasped in relief as he felt the current stabilise and his charge levels stop dropping.

He still had one minor capacitor bank near his lasercore that he'd filled from Galvatron's systems and hadn't tapped yet. Impulsively, he switched it closed and set his interlocks to keep it that way. He knew he couldn't really keep even the traces of Galvatron's power - stored charge dissipated slowly if it wasn't cycled out and energy signatures degraded even faster than that, he'd lose those fire-golden fingerprints within a day - and yet. _Galvatron had saved his life._ Somehow, he didn't want to let go of the proof of that right away.

The bay doors were closed. His processors wobbled on the brink of a crash now he was finally safe. Kup was saying something about Galvatron's charge tainting the Matrix, First Aid was telling him that wasn't how medical science worked, and Rodimus slid below the surface of consciousness with a kind of drowsy inevitability. His memories circled back, lingering on Galvatron's rough touch ruthlessly splicing him back together, Galvatron snapping at him to _stay awake_ , the fire-hot rush of Galvatron's charge in his circuits. That cryptic look Galvatron had given him, just as he had turned away... when was he going to find out what _that_ had been about?

It finally sank in with the very last traces of his awareness that he was actually _hoping_ to see Galvatron again, but thankfully he blacked out before the implications of that could get anywhere near him.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic landed in my head while I was freezing alone in the dark on a camping trip, which may be how the hurt/comfort vibes sneaked in. This isn't in continuity with anything else I've written, just a standalone piece. No idea if there is going to be any more.


End file.
